Three time Olympian Mike Janyk has roots that dig deep into the heart of Grouse Mountain.
His grandfather, Peter Vajda, designed and built the mountain’s first ski lift. His mother Andree grew up skiing at Grouse where she picked up enough speed to race her way onto the Canadian national team.
Mike, a West Vancouver native who was a national team staple for years alongside his sister Britt before he retired shortly after the Sochi Olympics, honed his craft mostly in Whistler but raced at Grouse several times in his early days and then once more to end his racing career in 2014. For Janyk, the mountain holds special meaning.
“I always felt Grouse was a little magical because you leave the city behind, you climb that tram and it’s a real magical area,” he says. “Very secluded. I remember the kind of spirit that lives up there – you really get to focus in on the surroundings and the people around you.”
Janyk will get to share in that magic a lot more now in his new role as performance director of the Grouse Mountain Tyee Ski Club. The club’s leadership group thought Janyk would be the perfect person for the role now that his calendar is not full of World Cup racing. Janyk, however, wasn’t so sure.
“I said no,” he recalls with a laugh. “I didn’t think I was ready.”
But the Grousers kept at him, showing him around the new high-tech Blazes Race Centre, opened last year, and introducing him to the volunteers and parents that helped build it. It was, in fact, the parents that helped convince Janyk that this was a place that he’d like to be.
“I was blown away,” he says. “What really did it for me was when I heard what their club is about and what they’ve built and I saw the involvement that they have from the parents that support it all. After I saw that I was sold.”
The club is happy he had a change of heart.
“We’re thrilled to have Mike working with our young skiers,” Tyee Ski Club president Chris Pretty said in a release. “With the opportunity to benefit from his wealth of racing knowledge, we anticipate even more success for Tyee racers in the coming seasons.”
Janyk says he has toured around the country since his retirement, working with several ski clubs and seeing what makes them tick.
“The ones that stood out were the ones that had great parent initiatives, great club support, great mountain relationships,” he says, adding that the work that Grouse volunteers did on Blazes is proof that they’re up to the challenge. “All those boxes are checked with (the Blazes run). The relationships that built it and the people that built it – it’s really exciting to be a part of. Getting a great training venue is a bonus.”
Janyk’s own slalom racing career was highlighted by a World Cup silver in Colorado in 2006, a World Championship bronze in France in 2009, and nine Canadian championship medals, including four golds. He’s also the co-founder of the Mike and Manny Foundation, working with North Vancouver racer Manuel Osborne-Paradis to offer camps for financially challenged ski racers.
Janyk’s work with Grouse has already begun – he was recently on the snow with many of the Tyee kids at a training camp at Sun Peaks. It’s early days in his tenure as performance director but he knows what path he’d like the club to take.
“The well-being of the athletes and the coaches are of primary importance,” he says. “The results are secondary. I really feel that that will grow into greater and more consistent performances from all walks of athletes.”
Janyk spent a lot of time competing in environments where results were prized over athlete well-being, and argues that it was a counterproductive setup.
“Put them under pressure and the top ones will come out on top and be the best,” he says, recalling the prevailing attitude when he was coming up as a skier. “In my own career and talking with others who went through those kinds of systems, they’re not as conducive to happy and fulfilling lives afterwards. I think if we address the individual primarily, it will in turn lead to way more consistent and greater performances for everyone.”
Since Janyk retired he’s been working on building his own happy and fulfilling life, joking that he’s filled his days with “nothing. As much as possible.”
When the North Shore News caught up with him last week Janyk, naturally, was on top of a mountain in Whistler getting in some turns with a buddy. But he’s also more than ready to get passionate about his new role with Grouse.
“I get swept up in it,” he says, adding that he’s excited to pass on the knowledge that made him one of the best technical skiers in the world. “It’s important to understand the basics of skiing, and then how to use your powers as a coach to motivate athletes to then ski those out.”
